Morris tribune., 1887-01-05
A PICTURE or THE GAR
a. Description Of the Life Whfcn
He Leads

Il
He Leads
A London correspondent of The Nee
York Times writes: My friend the mes
senger was On his way to St Petersburg
in~the autumn of last year, wfpen his
tain stopped at a small Russian way
station and was shunted off upon aside
track. The station yard was filled with
soldiers, filing off into lines along the
main track.
Tie messenger let down his window
and put 6rt bis head to discover the
cause of the delay, A soldier said some
thing to him in Russian. then pointed
his gun at his head. A travelling COM
panion pslIed the messenger back, say
ing: You dOn's understand Russian.
eh? TEsat man told you that If you
didn't shut the window and pull down
the curtain he would blow your brains
out" Naturally the window came up
and the curtain came down. They SAT
thus in the darkened compartment for
a Quarter of an hour. Then, with pro-
digious Yattle and roar, there flashed by
them on the main track short express
train. twenty n1;nrFtes more another
rushed past in the same direction. Then,
after some minutes, the soldleT shouted
to them that they might lift the blind
and they resumed their journey. In
uuirv revealed that the car had passed
them on his way to the eklernIWlce
meeting, and shat these precautions
were ordered all along the ne. No
one knew which of the trains bore him
4 PICTURE OF THE GAR.
The car h, mself seems TO have many
f1atterers, but no friends. | have talk
ed. da1esay. at one time or another
with score of people who have met
him and are fairly quail fed to judge
what manner of man he is. Almost
invariably he . described as BIZ, bef-
ly, bcarish sort of man, strangely unlike
any OF his more recent ancestors on
either side, and with Il face of curious
Teuton-Tartar type. picturesque but nn-
pleasant. He has vast physlca,
strength, of the blaeksm tn sort, and
has the kind of mind which not ibIre-
quently goes with that order OF body
slow. honest, obst nate, cODtIding where
faith is rcpOsed, suspicious everywhere
else In way George III must have
been of the same nature. He was
with Louis XVI, rather cOntemptuous-
" celebrated ny bis contemporary
critics as one of the two faithful hus-
bands among the sovereign OF Europe
Good husbands seem to make ban
kings. The present car is 81 to be Il
most devoted and single minded spouse
the first of his race. He
is par excellence a family man.
to whom the highest happiness
would be the home circle. if he were
allowed to have q home. His tas,es
are simple; he eats plainly and heavily;
before the burden Of empire came up
on him he used to be a great sleeper,
mighty hunter, bluff friend of the few
he liked hater of formalities. diplo-
macy, and pol tics generally-In short
a good, wholesome, rough pLebeian
prince stupid and choleric but honest
and true. Fate never played on mortal
a crueler trick than when she suddenly
hurled upon this man the load Of czar
ship. To be absolute master Of over
100, 000 900 of human beings is i'll itself
a task of inconceivable magnitude
When, further, the task is complicated
by organized robbery among officials
aud organized murder among subjects.
by continual necessity of provoking
war by aggression abroad and ceaseless
terror of assassination at home-It be-
comes simply impossible.
LIFE OF TERROR.
A less stubborn and less conscien-~
tious man than the czar would have cut
h throat long ago under the frightful
load imposed upon him. He suffers
| L. l. IL
good to himself or anybody else. His
wife is pale specter of her former self,
looking old enough to be the mother OF
| her older but marvelously preserved
sister, the Princess of Wales. worn and
gray-haired with her life of fright
Their eldest son, the czarowitz. Il boy
of IS. is in decline from which there
is little hope of recovery-simply ter
rihed out of his fe. But the car still
manfully tries to be czar. The task is
beyond him. If there could be a man
made up of Bismarck. Washington,
Richel,eu. Bonaparte and Tamerlane
put on the Russian throne, perhaps he
could hold his place and compel sue
cess.
The present czar lives in the dazel
nightmare of terror which paralyzeS a
prisoner under indefinite sentence OF
death. Any moment the messenger .of
the Ak may appear. He cannot sleep
when he Gates, it is as an animal, not
as the master of the worlds costliest
cuisine. He tries to work. without un-
derstanding the things he does or car
ing for them. He looks into every
mans face for sign of murderouS
knowledge. He trusts nothing no
body. The gulf between what he is
and what he is supposed to be is so
abysmal--the joke Of being at once the
most powerful man on earth and the
poorest hunted slave in existence is SO
gr,mly horrible-that he becomes a
madman almost in the effort to compre-
hend the two extremes. The longing
to assert himself, to put to the test his
autocracy, drives him to wild and fool
ish measures. His whole course toward
his hated cousin. the Battenberg. and
the Bulgarians has been that of a crazy
man. People who know Russia best
expect that his brain will give way un-
der the strain long before we have
hoard tho laSt of tho Ruicarian ones,